Social Media Storm Erupts as Motrin Brand Campaign implodes, needs to be run by someone who knows the Brand well and Social Media, well

I’ve been hearing about the Social Media Storm Spreads as Motrin Ad Angers Moms, that Social Media Campaigns for well established Brands, like Motrin, should always be run by someone who knows the Brand very well AND knows how Social Media functions, well – and, evidently, that didn’t happen, as referenced by B.L. Ochman.

This Motrin ad about moms who wear their babies in a variety of slings has set off a fire-storm on Twitter, where #motrinmoms quickly became the topic of thousands of angry tweets, and in blogs from mothers and lots of others, like me, who find the ad condescending. A Facebook group of moms who find the ad offensive quickly followed.

Clearly, nobody at Motrin, or its agency, was paying attention today, Sunday. And by Monday, you can bet that you’ll hear about this on the evening news and in dead tree media. Sure, Motrin will respond, or take the ad down, withdraw it from its rotation, etc. But the damage to the brand, among the very large and vocal niche they were targeting, is done.

Lesson to Motrin: any company that wants to participate in social media and use the tools better know how to walk the walk.

Sounds like the Social Media Ad that got lots of Mom’s in pain protest was just another Ad Agency “manufactured” Social Media plug, that didn’t work – people see right though that kind of stuff now.

“…I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: an ad agency the last place a company should go when it wants to use the tools of social media. Before you venture into social media, hire creative talent that has already created successful social media marketing campaigns for major brands. Everyone and her dog says they’re a social media guru. That’s just not true. Don’t believe the hype. Look at the track record instead.”

Why does Social Media require transparency? Think….. In order to process peer to peer community information, genuine feelings, there require more complex brain functions that can’t be faked – where as primitive, two dimensional thinking can be faked and gamed -and often has been.

Just going and hiring an Ad Agency to do your Social Media for your is a mistake – they’re just hired contractors, doesn’t matter if they’re experienced by virture of creating other campaigns – they aren’t you – they can’t be genuine because the agency is just a hired contractor – perhaps a partner, but still, not you.

In order to be genuine, and to be worthy of trust, you have to real, open and transparent, and that’s something you almost will never get by just going out and hiring an agency.

By the way, the Reptilian Brain, is both the problem and solution to a lot of different things we’re facing – and I brought it in to this context because Motrin, took a passive role, it appears, by just hiring an agency to do their work for them instead of making it something more grass roots.

Honestly, with all the people that legitimately use Motrin and find it works, including Moms, you’d think they could have gone out and found real grassroots support for a Social Media Campaign.

By the way, I haven’t even talked about the measurement of this Motrin campaign – which would have been a whole different post.

Marshall Sponder is an independent Web Analytics and SEO/SEM specialist working in the field of market research, social media, networking and PR. He provides digital data convergence generating ROI and develops data metrics, KPI’s and dashboards that drive businesses by setting, evaluating benchmarks and teaches Analytics at UCI Extension and Social Media for The Arts at Rutgers University.